


I would stand in line for this

by palavapeite



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU where Dean Smith continued to work at Sandover even when Dean Winchester went back to his life, M/M, read: AU of the kind that doesn't make sense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-24
Updated: 2013-11-24
Packaged: 2018-01-02 12:43:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1056898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palavapeite/pseuds/palavapeite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life goes on for Steve. And, as he finds out, not just for him.</p><p>Inspired by a couple of Dean Smith/Steve posts/suggestions on Tumblr after 09x06 aired, in particular <a href="http://drawingthings-sketchingpeople.tumblr.com/post/67138043387">this</a> picture. </p><p>A lot of random cuteness and not-so-cuteness and possibly a couple of unpopular developments, idk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I would stand in line for this

Today, Steve takes the subway to work at the crack of dawn. He unlocks the door to the small store with a master key and his nametag reads “store manager” when he looks at himself in the staff bathroom mirror. He’s wearing the tie he got for his pretend-birthday and it’s two minutes before he has to flip the sign to “open”.

It’s been thirteen months and two weeks since he’s last heard from the Winchesters. 

Steve stopped working at the shabby store Dean last saw him in about nine months ago. The husband of the woman who dated him at the time was the manager of a small chain of slightly less shabby drug stores and offered him somewhat crappier shifts at convincingly better pay over dinner one night.

Steve moved into their spare room and got used to getting up earlier. 

He tried to call Dean then to tell him, but only got voicemail. 

Harold merged and expanded his drug store chain and he offered Steve a position as a manager of one of the smaller outlets. Steve doesn’t sleep with Caroline anymore, but he’s good friends with Harold these days. When asked, he said “yes” and moved out of their shared house and across the state to Ohio. 

He only tried to call Dean once that time. 

Now he lives in a slightly damp, but fully furnished basement one of Caroline’s former lovers rents out. It feels new and friendly, but he misses having people around for dinner, and the laughter and screaming of Harold’s kids. He wonders sometimes what happened to the angels and the Winchesters.

He’s keeping the old cell phone, he says to himself every now and then. Even though he never makes a call. Just in case.

*

Seven weeks into his new job he watches, frozen, how Annie sells a bottle of contact lense fluid to a man in his thirties at the next counter.

He almost, _almost_ calls Dean, or Sam, that night, determined to at least leave a message. But then the phone rings and Luca and Juan invite him over for drinks with some people from California, and he doesn’t.

*

Two days later the man is back and Steve finds himself looking into the familiar face of a perfect stranger. He’s staring, the aftertaste of his morning coffee still stale on his tongue.

“Something wrong?” the man asks, and Steve knows his eyes are slightly puffy, even though he guesses it’s barely showing. He looks down at the credit card. 

“No,” he says, and gets a grip as he swipes the card, his thumb running across the letters of the man’s name as he hands it back, together with his purchases. He uses a different brand of condoms than Steve. “There you go.” 

The man, Dean Smith MBA, takes the card and the bag with his things and turns to leave. 

“We currently have an offer on these,” Steve says, almost as an afterthought, and gestures at the array of cold medicine and cold prevention drops and syrups. Dean Smith frowns, then smirks and salutes him with his cup of greenish goo. 

“Not a fan of the chems. Bodies and temples, you know.” His voice is charming and polite, but distant and Steve knows that tone, knows that it means that Dean Smith is already out of the shop and on his way to work. He smiles pleasantly and turns to the zombie student next in line.

*

A customer named Angela cons him into attending a tantric yoga workshop that weekend that unsettles his chakras rather than sorts them out, and he’s kind of glad when she confesses she was only trying to get into his pants. It’s the beginning of a friendship.

*

Steve doesn’t think about it again until he sees the tall brick building down the street from his bank. He has an idea, he thinks, of what must’ve happened, now that the surprise has settled. He just never expected that Zachariah’s twist of reality would leave any shadows in its wake.

He never thought to go back and make sure. 

Googling doesn’t really yield anything useful, but he expected that much. It’s Juan who knows someone - it’s _always_ Juan who always knows someone - who used to work there and knows Dean Smith, and Steve can only just keep Juan from calling him and setting up a date. It’s really not worth it. 

Steve decides to forget about it. Dean Smith, he decides one day as he watches him leave Annie’s counter with moisturising and sanitising hand balm, a bit under the weather, doesn’t look like a threat.

*

Dean Smith, Steve revises his opinion a couple of days later, looks _like hell_. It’s strangely vindicating to have seen it coming.

“You take these,” Steve instructs, setting down the small bottle of pills on the counter, “Twice a day for two to three days and then switch to these.” 

“Thanks.” 

Dean Smith eyes the two types of pills with thinly disguised distaste and clutches his takeaway coffee tighter to himself. His hair is impeccable, but his eyes are glazed and he’s sniffing. 

“As long as they get me through the meeting today,” he mutters to himself as he puts them into his coat, one hand holding his credit card out to Steve. Steve glares at him. 

“Oh. No.” 

Dean Smith frowns down at his credit card, then up at Steve, who shakes his head, determined to be as stubborn as he needs to be. 

“I’m sorry, but these meds will render you unfit for work. If anything, you should go straight home, lie down and spend the next two days sleeping. Didn’t your doctor tell you?” 

He holds Dean’s slightly red-eyed look for a moment and then almost startles when the other man’s face contorts into a winning smile. 

“Nah,” Dean says, shrugging it off, picking up one of the bottles and turning it in his hand. “I think I’ll be fine. I’ll get some OJ with this.” 

He is out of the door before Steve can say anything.

*

Steve is overseeing a delivery of hygiene articles the next morning when he spots Dean Smith getting a bottle of over the counter vitamins from Sebastian, who is on the morning shift because Annie is sick.

From the look of him, Steve concludes that Dean Smith clearly is, too, despite his groomed appearance, and that he probably didn’t even unscrew the bottles he bought the day before. 

He forgets all about Dean Smith when a toddler vomits onto his shoes in the baby food aisle and his lunch break has to be cancelled because he needs to scrub them clean, and because a busload of tourists storms the shop asking for something to prepare them for unexpectedly harsh weather for mid-October Ohio.

Hours later he sends Sebastian home and volunteers to stay late because his shoes are still drying in the back, he can hardly walk home through the rain wearing crocs, and his day cannot really get any worse.

Holding on to the small plastic bag filled with tissues, nose spray and cough drops, Steve catches Dean’s eyes as he looks up at him for the second time today. 

“You’re an idiot,” he says flatly and Dean frowns before looking around the empty store. It’s dark outside and they’re about to close up. When he looks back at Steve, his face is a little sterner than it usually is, and the nonchalant grin he apparently brushes things off with all the time looks forced and impatient. 

“You’re sick,” Steve continues, still not letting go of the bag, and yeah, that elicits a snort that sounds familiar. “I feel it’s my professional duty to tell you to go home, take the pills your doctor told you to take, and call in sick tomorrow.” 

Dean Smith glares at him for a moment before he grunts defiantly, his voice rough and tired. 

“You know, nice to know that you care, but I don’t swing that way, man.” 

Steve lets go of the bag and doesn’t look after Dean as he leaves the shop.

*

Harold is in town for two days and after some store-related business, Steve takes a day off to show him around. He takes him out to dinner and Harold insists on buying him a hideous rug for his bedroom. He’s fallen in love with someone, he tells Steve as they go out with some mutual friends.

The younger one of the kids has drawn him an abstract masterpiece as a gift that Steve feels obliged to pin to the fridge.

*

Three weeks and a small bout of flu of his own later, Steve runs into Dean on a Saturday, at a tiny organic grocery store he’s let Angela drag him to. She’s currently hitting on the two owners behind the counter and Steve is contemplating the relative merits of broccoli over spinach for the quiche Angela is planning on making. Or was. Right now Steve is not so sure whether the quiche wasn’t just a ruse.

Dean’s shopping basket is full to the brim with things that don’t contain carbs and after a moment of awkward glances during which Steve doesn’t quite know whether or not they are officially recognising each other, he steps aside and lets him pass. 

Steve is on his way out, sharing an exasperated smile with Angela, who doesn’t seem to be planning on leaving anytime soon, when he catches Dean looking at him through bunches of fennel, and finds himself blushing.

*

There is a nauseatingly boastful newspaper article and interview with a man who just cracked the jackpot for a second time in seven years and Steve is contemplating whether the man might be a witch, a demon deal, or just, as Annie had declared, a _fucking doucheparade_ for still playing the lottery at all. There are no mysterious deaths or otherwise strange occurrences or omens to absolve the guy from being just the latter.

The door to the shop opens and Steve congratulates himself for not closing the till yet. He straightens up, throwing one last look at the picture of the smug asshole in the article as he closes the paper. 

“Would you believe I actually met that jerkface once,” Dean Smith says, smirking down at the paper before looking up at Steve. “Hi.” 

“Hi,” Steve echoes warily, eyes quickly scanning the empty shop. It’s three minutes to closing time on a Wednesday. The place is empty. 

“So, I came to say thanks for those pills and the, uh, advice the other week,” Dean says and he’s utterly charming, his smile just big enough to be teasing and rueful at once, and somehow Steve doesn’t have a defence against the way he stands so open and relaxed, as if it was yesterday that he got those pills and not over a month ago. 

“I meant to say thanks the other day at the store,” Dean continues, cocking his head and Steve wonders if he’s being flirted with. 

“Did you take a day off as I told you?” he asks and rolls his eyes when Dean looks busted. 

“I took half a day off,” he says defensively and they both have to laugh at that. 

“I also wanted to say sorry,” Dean continues, a little more quietly, his grin definitely rueful now. “You were trying to be nice and help and I was being-”

“You think you’re the first sick person to come in here grumpy?” Steve asks, slightly flustered and Dean licks his lips before shrugging minutely. 

“Well, no, but I was also... not really being honest.” When Steve only frowns, he continues, eyes carefully watching Steve’s face, “About not swinging that way.”

There is a pause and the overhead lights give a gentle flicker. 

“Oh,” is all Steve can think of to say in reply because yeah, he is only realising now that there is a thought he’s had. Dean laughs quietly, then shrugs and grimaces, smoothness sliding back into his features. 

“Yeah, you know I wasn’t... it’s, well, my therapist’s really hung up about honesty, so I thought I’d just-” 

“Do you want to have coffee with me?” Steve blurts out and the only thing that keeps him from feeling embarrassed is the promptness of Dean’s “yes” that makes them both grin again. 

“Are you just closing up?” Dean asks, looking at his watch. “It’s not that late and I-” 

“It’s going to take me twenty minutes or so,” Steve falls in, turning to look at the door to the back, where he will do the rest of the paperwork tomorrow before he opens the store. “There’s some stuff to wrap up, but...” He looks back at Dean, who nods and backs off, pointing over his shoulder at the door. 

“Of course, I... There’s a coffee shop down the street. See you there?” 

“Yeah.”

*

Steve rings Caroline out of bed on his way to work the next morning and she sounds genuinely happy for him. He doesn’t quite know what to make of that.

*

Dean Smith, Steve learns when he sees him again two weeks later, is a vegetarian of the type that doesn’t eat red meat, and a person who has opinions on the low-fat-half-caf-mocha available in pretty much any coffee shop within a mile of his workplace. It makes sense in combination with the fact that he’s a workaholic to a point where grabbing more coffee counts as recreational downtime.

They go for a run one Sunday morning, in a quiet park a little out of town and Steve manages to keep up primarily to keep from freezing his ass off. Dean only teases him a little bit and offers a hand to help him up when he lies sprawled on his back by the end of it, wheezing, while Dean is doing his stretches. Dean also pays for Steve’s no-skim-full-caf double latte with extra cream and sprinkles afterwards, and tells him disconnected and random stories of his life in college, and how he’s been trying to teach himself Japanese. 

They see each other three more times within the following two weeks and Steve takes Dean to one of Noel and Annie’s parties that they stay at for precisely twenty-one minutes before fleeing the scene and making out on Steve’s couch to a tragically unfunny movie from the early nineties that happens to be on TV.

*

Steve spends Christmas with Caroline and Harold and the kids, and New Year’s Eve in Boston with Luca and some friends of his. He comes back home determined to never let Luca drag him barhopping again in his life, but pleased about the small abstract sculpture he found in a random store in a side street that he knows would match the ones Dean uses as bookends on his shelves.

He gives it to Dean as a belated birthday present in the first week of February, after most of January has flown by in a flurry of flu patients, sneezing children and overworked insomniacs in need of antidepressants and all the vitamins the alphabet has to offer. 

Dean’s invited him over for dinner in between business trips, seems to be happy that Steve remembered his birthday at all, and they go to bed early and pass out. Steve is ushered out of the apartment at the crack of dawn because Dean needs to get to the airport.

*

Steve doesn’t really understand how used he’s become to hearing from Dean until he doesn’t for a week and a half and he’s so angry at both himself and Dean, he’s got half a mind of cancelling their next date under the pretence of renovating his crappy basement apartment. He even buys paint and brushes.

In the end he doesn’t cancel, and without knowing how he ever got there he’s sitting across the table from Dean in a quiet spot at a restaurant, an empty dessert dish between them, and talking about how they want “this” to be something and how they could imagine it working out. Dean seems to make an effort to be honest, apparently trying to keep his self-consciousness at bay by being frank, and Steve feels both awed and small in face of the novelty of the situation. 

It’s awkward and the conversation isn’t really of the kind that ever reaches a conclusion, but Steve feels lighter on the way home and smiles when he texts Dean the next morning.

*

When Dean cancels two dates in a row on short notice because of work, Steve rants on the phone to Caroline for half an hour until she starts giving him professional relationship counsellor advice about communicating and verbalising emotions and he hangs up on her in a huff to bitch at the TV instead.

There’s a story on the news that looks like it could be werewolves at the edge of town and Steve spends Friday night in front of his laptop, researching. 

The next morning, Dean wakes him up by ringing his doorbell, with coffee, breakfast and a promise that he doesn’t have to get back to his office until Steve has to unlock the store on Monday. 

They spend the rest of the day painting Steve’s living room and hallway. 

They have dinner at Dean’s and don’t leave the bedroom for most of Sunday, and Steve learns that Dean goes to therapy because a man killed himself before his eyes a couple of years ago, and then he never quite figured out how to stop going.

*

Steve remembers the werewolves a week later, but it seems like someone has taken care of that in the meantime. Or maybe there never was a case at all.

*

Steve and Dean fall into a comfortable rhythm of dinners, sleepovers and long-distance calls, until Harold tells Steve in late spring that he has to close the store because of the economy and Steve realises that he doesn’t want to take Harold’s offer of taking over another store back in Idaho if it means leaving his friends and Dean behind.

When he tells Dean, he looks so happy Steve knows he did the right thing.

*

It’s when he starts looking around for jobs that things get hard, and it’s harder even than it was when he first tried to find work. His life’s been so short that all he’s got to his name is the kindness of friends, which counts for nothing, and Steve has always known that, but now he finds that it bothers him in a nasty, shameful way - and this time, he thinks, he’s got so much to lose.

Steve’s not a fool; he knows that Dean must have some idea of all this, but it’s uncomfortable to feel it show so obviously. It hovers, it always hovers, somewhere in the room with them and neither of them knows how to acknowledge it without hurting. 

For the first time in a long time Dean spends most of his weekend working and Steve hates how miserable they both look. He spends a night staring at his old cell phone that hasn’t rung in such a long, long time, and he despises himself for wanting to pick it up.

*

Juan, ever reliable, knows someone who knows someone who could put Steve up with a temporary waiter job for the summer months. Steve’s planning on telling Dean about it, casually, when he’s over for dinner after his weekly therapy session and maybe ease the tension a little.

Then Dean shows up with a takeaway cup of green goo and a face so determined that Steve spontaneously yells at him instead. While half his brain is uncontrollably unloading angst and impotent rage through his mouth, the other half watches with growing terror because it hits him in that moment that he loves Dean, really loves Dean, and that he’s an even bigger failure for yelling at him now, when none of this is his fault at all.

Dean, to his surprise, lets him yell for a couple of minutes with a brave face, and when even Steve’s violently thrashing brain half has realised that it’s not accomplishing anything and he takes a deep breath, they sit down at the kitchen table. 

“I feel lonely,” Dean says calmly, the way his therapist probably told him to. The way Caroline always tells Steve you’re supposed to. “Please tell me how you feel. Or how I can help you feel better.” 

Steve breathes and after a long moment, he bites his lip and cringes out,

“I feel... ashamed.” 

They’ve been through the damned “constructive arguments” script more than once before, but never this extensively and Steve can’t remember ever having so much to say. But he talks and talks _and talks_ , and Dean does his best to just listen without trying to fix anything. A bottle of wine appears from somewhere and it’s past midnight when they decide they’re not going to have dinner anymore tonight. 

Neither of them feels elated when they go to bed, but Steve feels like a person again.

*

Steve starts working at a low-brow restaurant that does soup kitchens for the homeless on Sundays and he makes new friends that might be able to set him up with a job come fall. Nothing fancy or prestigious, but something worthwhile, something that might help people. Steve likes that idea.

He’s draped across Dean’s back and feels lazy and content as he talks into his ear about maybe getting into social work somehow, in the long run. 

Dean hums and smiles as he listens and then shifts nervously and starts talking about a colleague he went for a drink with after a meeting the other week. Steve’s drowsy brain has only just caught up with the narrative by the time Dean asks him whether he’ll come sailing with him in August. 

“I know your hang-ups and I respect them, I do,” he says quickly, the tips of his fingers nervously tapping across the skin of Steve’s forearm, “But will you consider it? It’s... there’s no point for me if you’re not coming, you know. I just...” 

He turns around and into Steve’s arms. It’s quiet and Dean’s hand is searching for something to hold on to.

“I’d want to have this for us. I don’t... I don’t want this to be about money. Please?” 

“I’ve never been sailing,” Steve says eventually, thoughtfully bumping his nose against Dean’s. “I’ll think about it.” Dean relaxes in his arms and Steve smiles. “I’ll check with the people at work.”

*

After what seems like a long time coming, Dean and Angela meet and get on like a house on fire. Steve watches them talk animatedly about cleansing and detoxing and the pros and cons of veganism with a growing sense of horror, and he tries not to roll his eyes when Dean comes back from his first session of tantric yoga and absolutely loves it.

*

They fly up to Chicago in August and rent a car from there to spend two days with Dean’s colleague Lou, who owns a spacious apartment near the lake in a smaller town. Lou greets them and sets them up in the guest room before taking them to see his mini sailing yacht.

Steve hears, for the fifth time in three days, the story of how Dean used to go yachting when he was in college, but refrains from commenting on it when he sees that Dean seems to at least know his way around the boat well enough. It takes Steve a couple of test spins with Lou on board to get the hang of it, but at the end of the second day, they have a final dinner with Lou and he helps them organise a six day trip around Lake Michigan. 

The weather is on their side and Steve can’t remember enjoying himself this much. They spend their days getting sunburnt and Dean, having forgotten his razor, decides he needs to grow a beard. He looks absolutely unlike himself for three days in which Steve gently takes the piss out of him, until they both get used to the scruff and Dean starts making jokes about keeping it. 

They stay away from larger harbours and instead look at a couple of smaller towns along the lake, from which Steve sends postcards to everyone they know because Dean is paying for everything else. 

They make love every night, exhilarated by how good they’ve become at it, and they are utterly, stupidly happy.

*

Back home Luca is having a crisis because his ex-lover called him to say that she’s seven months pregnant, Dean throws himself headfirst into work because a minor promotion he’s been working toward is coming into reach, and Steve keeps his job at the Sunday soup kitchen while working part time as a janitor at an overnight shelter for the homeless.

Dean is supportive and gets him a keychain with an orange and purple floor mop for his birthday that Steve laughs at for half an hour before he can get ready to go out for dinner.

*

When Dean’s promotion finally rolls around and Steve mockingly tells everyone that he barely remembers what his boyfriend even looks like, Sandover organise a semi-formal office celebration with after-work champagne and tiny vegetarian sandwiches topped with low-fat mayonnaise. Dean asks Steve to come as his partner and Steve, who hasn’t really worn a suit in months, puts on his best one and makes himself presentable.

It’s the most official thing they’ve attended together so far and they’re both nervous and don’t really drink, so they agree to leave it at one glass of champagne and stick to water from then on. 

Steve keeps smiling, and tells himself over and over that no amount of alcohol would make him feel less out of place among these strangers in suits. He sticks to the background, doesn’t say much unless addressed directly (which happens twice) and mostly just wants to go home, but Dean looks so proud and this is for him. 

“Thank you, love,” Dean says later, when they go to bed, and promises Steve that he won’t have to do it again if he doesn’t want to.

*

Steve receives two calls in succession.

One is from Luca, who roars over the sound of traffic that he is father to the perfect baby and expects presents in gender-neutral colours.

The other is from Caroline, who tells him that she’d like to visit for a couple of days. She’s moving out of her house with Harold and in with her best friend, but she’s got a week in between with nowhere in particular to stay. Steve doesn’t even hesitate.

The third call, later that night, is from Dean, who is in Boston and about to fall asleep on the phone as he apologises for not calling yesterday and for the possibility that he forgets tomorrow as well because he doesn’t know what day of the week it is. Steve tells him about Luca’s baby and hangs up when the only reply he gets is a soft, familiar snore.

*

They’re in a baby store surrounded by diapers, milk bottles and soft things that make gentle tinkling sounds when shaken, when Dean calls to tell him that he’ll be back early from his business trip. He sounds reluctant when Steve tells him that Caroline is here and why, but agrees to meet them at Steve’s for dinner.

The stiffness in his back and conversation doesn’t escape Steve when they all sit around his kitchen table, and he’s not sure it’s because Dean doesn’t like flying out to Texas to argue with the people there like he claims. But Caroline is funny and charming and Steve’s missed the ease with which she’s always been able to make him laugh. 

Dean leaves not long after dinner, explaining that he’s tired from his trip and needs a good night’s sleep. Steve kisses him on his way out the door and when he returns to the kitchen table, Caroline’s relationship counsellor perception has told her exactly what just happened.

She refuses to just tell him, of course. Typical.

*

The next day, Steve does something he’s only ever done once, and that was when Dean left his phone at home - he goes to see him at his office.

He makes an excuse at the shelter and, armed with a cup of Dean’s favourite shade of green goo, talks his way past his secretary right before Dean’s due to go on lunch break. He cuts right to the chase as soon as the door closes behind him and Dean is facing his way and has said “hi”.

“Are you jealous of Caroline?” 

Dean takes off his headset and his eyes dart to the smoothie in Steve’s hand before he looks back up into his eyes. 

“Yes,” he says and Steve’s shoulders relax a little as he walks up to the desk and sets down the cup in front of Dean, who is on the goddamned cleanse again. He sits down in the visitor’s chair. 

“Anything I can do?” he asks and Dean drops his head against the backrest of his office chair, his fingers dropping the pen he’s been holding. 

“No. I don’t know,” he sighs eventually, looking at Steve thoughtfully. “I don’t know why.” 

Steve nods, then gets up and walks around the desk to press a kiss to Dean’s cheek and shove the smoothie into his hand. 

“Think about it? And maybe tell me tonight at dinner? My treat.” 

“I’m on the cleanse,” Dean mutters weakly, but catches Steve’s hand and squeezes it before Steve can offer to puree a turnip especially for him. “I’ll pick you up from work?”

*

Caroline texts in the afternoon that she won’t be home tonight, but Steve doesn’t argue when Dean takes them to his own apartment and they have dinner on the couch, feet touching as they face each other.

“I’m jealous,” Dean says after an hour of casual conversation, “Because I’m not sure what kind of rules she comes with. And what that means for... well, me. Us.” 

“So... do you need to know that I’m not sleeping with her?” Steve frowns, trying to understand. “Because I’m not sleeping with her.” 

“But you used to,” Dean explains, and he sounds exasperated at language as he struggles on, “And I know she and her husband have rules and you were all happy with the rules, I just... I’m not so sure I know what our rules are. Do we have any? I mean, what are yours for her or for me?”

And wow, Steve thinks, it hurts to hear that, even though it’s not a surprise. 

“I would never knowingly hurt you,” he says weakly and he can read on Dean’s face that it’s only a small comfort. “I don’t want to sleep with anyone else. If I did-” He pauses and he can see in Dean’s eyes that this is where the pain sits. He takes a deep breath. “I would talk to you. I promise you, Dean, I would talk to you. We would talk it out beforehand.” 

“What if I won’t be able to want what you ask of me?” 

“I...” Steve stops. “I can’t promise you more than honesty, Dean.” 

“I know,” Dean replies miserably and Steve extends a hand and wraps his fingers around Dean’s as he reaches them. He tugs gently and Dean shifts a little closer. 

And Steve tells him, for the first time ever, that he loves him, and how he loves him.

*

On Halloween Steve gets promoted from janitor of the shelter to front desk person because George, who used to do the job, has to move to Florida and take care of his mother. Steve keeps his janitorial duties, but now he also gets paid for keeping the place running smoothly.

They celebrate by eating half of the Halloween candy they bought themselves and Dean wears a pair of suspenders with skulls and crossbones on them.

*

Two nights later, Steve wakes up in the middle of the night at the sound of his front door slamming, and Dean is gone.

He doesn’t pick up the phone when he calls to make sure he’s all right, and when Steve tries again the next morning, Dean’s cell is switched off. 

The only time Dean switches his phone off is when he’s in a sitting with his therapist. 

Steve is too worried to be angry. 

It’s when Dean’s secretary tells him that Dean took the day off “like the past couple of years” that Steve begins to feel like he’s being screwed over.

*

Another day later, Steve leaves work upset, after an afternoon of checking his phone and wondering where Dean is, and so he takes a chance and swings by Dean’s apartment. He contemplates the doorbell, then takes the spare key Dean gave him a while ago, and opens the door.

“Please tell me what’s wrong,” he pleads quietly and Dean’s head snaps around. His eyes are tired and he looks weary and startled, and his hair is dishevelled. Steve puts the keys down on a nearby surface and lets his arms hang by his side. 

Dean slams his laptop shut and gets up from the table he’s sitting at, straightening his clothes and taking his empty glass to the sink for a refill. He shakes his head as he speaks. 

“Please, can you... I’ll call you tomorrow, okay? I...” 

“No. Dean, what is going on?” Steve asks again, taking a step towards him, but not reaching out. “You... what happened? Did something happen at work? Or... with your family?” 

Dean snorts so harshly, it comes out like a sob. He turns away and begins wiping down the counter.

“Yeah, my family.” His voice sounds bitter. “How do you like my family, Steve?”

“I don’t know,” Steve answers slowly, carefully. He’s never met anyone from Dean’s family, but then... he’s had so many reasons not to push the matter. “I haven’t met your family.” 

Dean murmurs something so quiet, Steve shakes his head and steps a little closer still. 

“Sometimes,” Dean says, “I’m not sure I have, either.” 

“What do you mean?” Steve asks gently, shifting towards the counter, into the periphery of Dean’s vision. “Dean, please talk to me.” 

And Dean tells him that every year on November the 2nd, he dreams of fire. He doesn’t know why, or when it started. He hasn’t actually heard from his family in years and he can’t explain or remember why. 

All their numbers are dead. 

“I don’t know what it is I can’t remember,” he says, eyes shining. He points at his laptop. “Do you know how many Robert Smiths there are? How many Ellens? How many Jos? I can’t find them, Steve. I don’t know what happened, I don’t know whether any of what I remember is even real. Hell, sometimes I feel like maybe _I’m_ not even real.” 

Steve’s throat hurts and he doesn’t know what to say to Dean, who sounds so defeated. And Steve can’t tell him how much he knows how it feels, how much it hurts to be so empty sometimes. He swallows and feels his voice and heart breaking when he clears his throat. 

Then he looks up and he sees, really _sees_ Dean standing there, with all his misery and pain, and everything they’ve worked so hard for, and he thinks that Dean Smith is the only real thing he has ever touched. 

He says it, as he wraps his arms around Dean’s neck and shoulders and lets himself be pulled closer. 

Dropping his temple against Dean’s ear he says “I love you” and feels real himself.

*

A month after their fourth anniversary, Dean gets offered a major promotion and a shiny office in Chicago, and he asks Steve to come with him.

Steve says yes.

He’s packing his things when an old cell phone falls into his hands, and when he turns it on he’s got a single missed call from an unknown number sixteen months ago. Steve ponders the phone for a moment, then takes out the sim card, snaps it in two, and throws it out. 

He donates the phone itself to a collection one of his co-workers is organising.

*

Dean’s new salary affords them a small house in one of the nicer suburbs and they move in together. At the turn of the year, Steve asks Dean to marry him.

Dean says yes. 

It’s a small ceremony, but all their friends are there, and Steve begins signing his name with a surname that he feels belongs to him.

*

Dean has a glint in his eye Steve hasn’t seen before when he tells him that he’s applied for a reassignment at work at a shelter for abandoned children and youths. Dean won’t say what he’s thinking, so Steve lets it go.

He spends the next year verbally wrestling disobedient teenagers and distracting crying preschoolers from how cruel the world can be.

*

It’s Dean who brings up the idea of adoption in the end and they have a long talk about becoming parents at their age, and about all the paperwork and legal proceedings before they both feel confident that yes, this is something they want.

They adopt two brothers, Benjamin and Howard, who are seven and four, and Steve decides to work part-time and stay at home more until Howie goes to school. 

They experience the whole spectrum of sicknesses children need to go through, spend some sleepless nights over Benji, who remembers a lot more hurt and abuse in his life than Howie, and have a spectacular fight over nothing that is broken up by Howie bursting into tears. 

But there are also weekend trips to the beach and even a short sailing trip on Lou’s yacht during which Dean only just survives a series of near-heart attacks and insist the kids be wearing life vests at all times. Steve gets Howie interested in playing the violin after some wrong starts with the piano, and finds a place for Benji to learn archery when he says he’d rather be doing that than football. 

Dean drives Steve nuts with secrecy for the entire week leading up to Christmas and Steve is just about to strangle him when Dean announces they’re going to Disney World in spring.

*

Howie’s in his first year of junior high when two classmates stop coming to school and gym class gets cancelled without explanation one day. Steve takes the afternoon off work and picks his younger son up, worried, but glad at least that he doesn’t seem to be too upset about what’s been going on.

He’s watching from the kitchen how Howie is using bad words he probably learned from Steve himself while playing with his x-box in the living room, when the doorbell rings. 

Steve knows the moment he looks at the badge that the man is a hunter. 

He’s so taken aback that he barely manages to uphold the conversation as the man steps inside, rattles off some story and asks whether he can talk to Howie. Steve hesitates. He doesn’t know the man, but he looks friendly underneath the scar down the side of his face and neck and the weary look that comes with the trade. 

Howie seems to trust him, so Steve does too, and Dean won’t be home for another couple of hours. The hunter smiles and speaks to his sock puppet, which answers in a squeaky voice, and Steve wants him to solve whatever case he’s on. 

He waits in the kitchen, a cup of green goo in his hand, and smiles at his phone when it rings and it’s Dean, probably worried about the cancelled gym class. 

“Hi, love,” Steve says. “No, everything is fine.”

The End

**Author's Note:**

> Have some notes at the end: 
> 
> The title of this fic is taken from Moby's "Extreme Ways". 
> 
> The line "You're the only real thing I ever touched" is shamelessly stolen from Kings, where Sebastian Stan broke my freaking heart with it.
> 
>  
> 
> Written for [nerakrose](/users/nerakrose/gifts) in an unofficial and non-binding private fic exchange thing.


End file.
